


Keeping Up The Illusion

by FoxyTurttle



Series: Warm Plating: Lifeguard [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Desperation, Dried up passion, Dull Sex, M/M, Relationship of Convenience, Routine, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, hopelessness, thinking of someone else during sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:33:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxyTurttle/pseuds/FoxyTurttle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes all you can do is hold onto what you got. Even if it's not much.<br/>Set after "Warm Plating"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Up The Illusion

**Author's Note:**

> I need to stop making myself sad.

They said routine killed the couple.

 _'More like death killed the couple, here'_ , Snare mused with no small amount of bitterness. _'And routine kept us sane in the face of it'_ , he added with irony.

Being bent over a table for the umptieth time by a lover whose thrill value had expired a long time ago was pathetic, useless and pretty damn dull. The Predator concentrated on meeting the other's dutiful thrusts to prevent a bark of grim laughter to slip free. 

These were the exact reasons he couldn't let this go.

When facing death, hopelessness and raving madness from your own superior, you held on to what you had. Even if it meant using some homemade lube every couple of solar cycles so your "lover" could try to slip in his barely charged spike. Like someone might meticulously clean the tools of their energon-winning long after retirement, like someone might conscientiously tidy up the room of a deceased friend, they mimicked a semblance of their once upon a time passionate coupling.

It may have been a masquerade but it was _their_ masquerade, and just like that retired 'bot or that grieving 'con, it kept them from being swallowed whole.

Today was just a little bit different. Today Stalker was breaking their unspoken agreement to ignore the pathetic nature of their tryst and let _frustration_ creep in.

"I'm having a hard time moving", he grumbled from behind Snare.

"Put some more lube", Snare had tried to snip back. It had come out as tiredly resigned. He'd abandoned long ago the idea of lubricating naturally.

"It's not that!", the other spat. "It's that I can't-", he brusquely shaked the Surveillance mech's hips, as if irritated at them, "I just can't, okay!"

Oh? Oh. _Oh._

Panic suddenly swelled in Snare's chest. The day had finally come. Where they couldn't count on this diversion anymore, where they'd have no choice but be overwhelmed by their fate. And here they thought they could have cheated their way through with a bit of lube...

"Y-you sure? Maybe we could try another position", the Security mech hastily proposed. Stalker's expression over his shoulder said it all: _'Really? You think a bit of realigning is gonna get me up? Grow up.'_

But Snare was not going down without a fight. When they couldn't get him to lubricate anymore, they had used what they could to see this through and made sure to come prepared for the following trysts. Just in case, they had both thought at the time. It was laughable how they wanted to believe it was temporary.

Still, they hadn't abandoned. And they couldn't now. If they did... If they did they would not bother anymore and then, only then, would they really have lost to Overlord's madness.

Emboldened by this thought, the Surveillance mech twisted in his comrade's weak embrace, still connected at their pelvis, laid his upper torso sideways on the table and swung his leg over the other's head, hooking it on his shoulder. The result was a highly uncomfortable position that left Snare wide open to anyone's sight. Stalker took hold of the leg with one hand and rested his other on the table, looking down at their joined equipments. He was more intrigued than lecherous but it was a start.

"Come on, tiger", Snare tried to goad. He received a bemused blink for his effort and, mercifully, his fellow Predator complied. The train was back on track. Now to make sure it reached its destination.

The novelty seemed to have done the trick; Stalker wasn't ragingly turned on - not even mildly actually - but enough consistance was now present to permit better motion. The crisis was not completely adverted, however.

The upside of their original position wasn't just the familiarity, allowing their processors to numb themselves in a repetitive task, but also the lack of _optic contact_. It was far easier to ignore the pointlessness of their actions if they didn't remind each other of it. It left Snare pointedly looking up and Stalker quirking an optic ridge at the raw sight of their coupling, silence only broken by the cold, wet sounds their bodies made.

All in all, it went from sort of relieving to very awkward.

Snare felt the tortionnist slowing down a bit. Alarmed, he glanced at his partner. Was he giving up? 

His optic ridge was no longer raised; instead, he was now frowning down where they joined. Not in in disapproval, the Surveillance mech noted with relief, but as in deep in thought. His free hand - the one on the table - slowly made its way to their equipment. There, it gently rubbed the rim enclosed around his spike.

"You know... I just realized: I haven't properly looked at you in a while", he lightly said. Snare could only reply with a non-committal noise. What was he supposed to answer to that?

 _'Yeah, well, you know. I haven't properly wanted to frag with you in a while'_? Their arrangement had been fine before Garrus-9; for all his delight at finding new ways to torture prisoners, Stalker kept his quirks outside the berthroom. Snare quickly learned that if his fellow Predator got all warm and ready during his sessions, the tortionnist got downright impatient when it was time to finally get off. Hence the traditional but effective pounding.

Well, effective at the time.

Decepticons didn't do relationships like Autobots: no corny words were exchanged, no illusion of exclusivity for the rest of their lives, no. Decepticons tried each other, strayed for a while if they found themselves compatible (sometimes strayed for the rest of their lives, but that was _never_ spoken of) and moved on to the next partner once it wasn't beneficial anymore.

Upon their arrival, they were working well together: Stalker got frisky with his job, Snare would blow off steam from his stressful Security and Surveillance job by joyfully taking the brunt of his arousal. During the first months of Overlord's rule, their little partnership sky-rocketed with the amount of torture to be done.

Then the executions started, the pit fights went on and less and less did they come to each other out of pleasure. Interface became an act of rebellion, something to prove themselves they weren't that affected by it all. Then a duty to keep the other close. They starting clinging to one another emotionally, their passion drying up as fear became a permanent fixture in their lives. Interfacing became a chore: something ungratifying but that had to be done. Anything to keep the illusion of normalicy a little longer.

Snare was the most affected by it. Unlike Stalker, his job was not required anymore. Security? It was permanent chaos here and Overlord made sure of it. Surveillance? For what? Overlord didn't care much about others or their opinions, and he gleefully waited for outsiders to come to him. The Security mech, left without anything to do, waited for someone, anyone, to come and get them out of this mess. Then waited for something, anything, to happen and change things. Then just waited for some duty, any duty, so he could somewhat move on, if not from this place, at least from this relationship.

Neither ever came.

And here it landed Snare, in a position he wasn't really fond of, being fondled by a lover whom he didn't feel a hint of desire for anymore and grimly wondering if it was worth the effort.

At least, this time, the other was trying to make one of his own, even if it was a lost cause. Those fingers on his rim were sort of relaxing but would most definitly not arouse him. He just didn't feel the need anymore.

 _'That's not completely true'_ , a voice at the back of his processor reminded him. 

No. He was not - _hot breath in his neck, hands roaming his body_ \- going to think about that mistake. The whole point of it had actually been - _the thrill, the surge, the_ desire - to get his mind off everything and he was not about to let it be a distraction - _like when he bit his neck before doing_ \- to his careful survival battle. He was just going to endure Stalker's strange revival of affection - _rough petting on his helm_ \- and make sure they kept this going - _on his back, taking it all_ \- so he could keep having a semblance of a purpose and not be _as_ useless - _strutless from pleasure_ \- as he was now. 

"You're getting warmer", he suddenly heard his partner say.

 _'And you're getting sloppy, but you don't see me commenting on every change you go through'_ , Snare dryly thought. Still, Stalker was right. He had felt a slight surge from the memory feed - _chapped lips mouthing his thighs_ \- and was now feeling his temperature rising.

Those fingers became more insistent.

 _'It will_ not _work. Why do you even_ bother _?'_ , he wanted to laugh at the tortionnist. Laugh hysterically. He couldn't believe the situation he was getting himself in. All because of a stupid - _handsome_ -, pathetic - _fierce_ prisoner - _interface machine_ -.

"You're not very vocal, aren't you?", was breathed in his ear.

That unexpectedly sent a surge of pleasure accross his body.

 _"Listen, I like a vocal partner like the next mech..."_ \- he couldn't suppress the shiver, nor bite back the moan - _"...but I'm not sure your buddies would really approve."_

Stalker's own shudder proved the Autobot wrong. The thrusting that had gradually picked up as the Surveillance mech thought of - _being sprawled on the floor, a heavy weight pinning him down_ \- his little misshap went up a notch. Forget duty, this was chasing pleasure now.

"Frag, frag, frag", he heard the tortionnist chant. _'Frag, frag, frag'_ , he remembered Impactor hissing in his audio and the resounding moan he had uttered then. And that he echoed now as h felt tingles dancing up and down his spine.

The other suddenly keened in surprised and his optics started roaming their thighs hungrily. 

_'What the...?'_ Snare looked too: smeared all other them were lubricants. Natural lubricants.

The Security mech did laugh hysterically this time: so it took a - _delicious_ \- miserable Autobot to get the result they'd been striving for? He really _was_ losing it.

 _'No point in fighting it then'_ , he told himself in grim humor before letting his head fall back in a wail and sinking.

_He wasn't on Garrus-9 anymore. He was on an escape pod going who knows where, going Impactors knows where. All he knew is that Overlord, Stalker and all this prison business was behind them for good._

_The Autobot had taken Snare with him. Maybe for the deed. Probably for the deed. He wasn't complaining. He was even asking for it._

_"Ah, yes, yes, YES!"_

_He didn't care anymore. He had the best excuse ever, the best justification for bending to the enemy's will. And he was going to enjoy it._

_"Harder!"_

_More than that he didn't need to be distracted anymore, he wasn't scared anymore. He was surfing on a dizzying sense of freedom._

_"I'm gonna, I'm gonna, aaaaaaaaaaah!"_

_He felt..._ hope _._

_"Impact- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"_

His world went white, his body twitched violently and his audios buzzed with static. Static that lasted until his vocalizer shorted out.

Stalker was hunched over him, panting, his own completion adding to the mess Snare had made.

Wow.

"Wow", his partner said outloud. "That was... that was just...", he swallowed, limbs shaking.

"Y-yeah", he could only reply, bemused by it all. He fidgeted a bit and winced. That position really had done a number on his back. Thankfully, Stalker seemed to get the hint and unhooked the leg from his shoulder, allowing Snare to rest his back against the table. He felt the tortionnist slump next to him. They stayed there a bit, their plating pinging as they cooled off.

"Impact?"

"Uh?", the Surveillance mech intelligently answered.

"Impact. It's what you said as you came."

A cold feeling of dread washed over Snare. Slag. Slag, slag, slag, slag, _slag!_ He had been so caught up in his fantasy he had vocalized what he was only supposed to imagine.

"W-well, yeah. Like... like 'brace for impact". Or some slag like that", he shakily said.

The other sniggered.

"What?!", he indignantly spat. "It's been a while, okay?"

"Yeah...", Stalker hummed contently. "It's pretty amazing we got off like that." He lightly smacked Snare's side. "Maybe there's hope for us after all?", he laughed.

The Security mech wasn't too sure what to think of that. Who was "us"? Garrus-9's population? Them two? And hope for what? Survival? Escape? ...rekindled passion? Too many questions he didn't want the answers to. Too many confused feelings as he realized what his first thoughts were: _'No there's not. Not here. Not with you.'_

He let his optics shut off.

_'Hope is on an escape pod.'_

Let himself sink into his new distraction, his new illusion.

_'With a convicted Autobot.'_

**Author's Note:**

> Stalker looked really touched by Snare's actions: "Traitor, traitor, traitor!" And I wanted to write more of Hopeless!Snare. I swear it's a kink by now.  
> Now I'm thinking about Impactor's side of things... Or that "What if" story.


End file.
